Anthology
by Leishe
Summary: (AU) The first story begins with a birth and a mistake. Cagalli listens intently to the story of her beginning.
1. Prologue

**Anthology** _(ăn-thŏl'ə-jē)_

_A collection of literary pieces, such as poems, short stories, or plays._

**Prologue**

An old man sat by the fireplace of his home, thinking. He sat in his chair, with a mug of warm chocolate on his lap, and a furry, old Saint Bernard nestled at his feet.

He sat there, rocking his chair from time to time, and listening to winter, as it blew outside, just beyond the glass panes of the windows. He listened to the sounds of the house, and marvelled at the quiet peace that was now in him, and at how he could finally lie here and rest.

The large dog stirred, only to reposition itself, and then settle back into sleep on the rug. The old man smiled at it, and thought of times when the world was still young for him, when this dog was still a puppy, and when he was still a young man.

"Grandpa! Grandpa, are you there?"

Knocking sounds came from behind the wooden door, and slowly, the old man stood up from his chair. His eyes crinkled at the sides when he recognized those young voices. His grandchildren rarely visited him, but when they did, he couldn't wish for more.

"Coming," he answered, opening the door for them.

The cold of the drifting snow blasted into the warm house, as three figures stepped from the dark outside into the bright inside of the old man's home. Two of them were very short, and the last was only a tad taller than the man. He squinted, but was not able to see any of them, because there was no light. All he caught was a sliver of red from the tallest one's hair.

They took their coats off, with the young children squealing happily as they rushed to hug their grandfather. Their mother just stood there, watching and smiling, as the man with violet eyes laughed and hugged his grandchildren.

"Look at you, you're almost as big as I am!" the old man measured from the little boy's head, up to his waist, while the child smiled at him proudly.

"What about me, grandpa?" asked the little girl impatiently.

"And here's the pretty young thing! Come and give grandpa a kiss," Smiling, she rushed to hug the old man, pecking him on his cheek.

After the pleasantries were exchanged, the children went off to play with the dog, which they'd named Pingu-sama, and the old man sat down again. This time, it was the mother's turn to move, smiling at her father quietly.

"Nice to see you again, otou-san."

Sitting down in his chair again, the man smiled slightly at his only daughter. He looked at her, studied her, and marvelled at how she looked so much like her mother, now that she was a grown woman. Of course, she had his eyes.

"Saki." He said.

She took something out from her coat; it was a flat black object. Saki handed it to him, watching for his reaction.

"What's this?" he asked, looking at her questioningly. She stared at him.

"It's for you."

"Yes, but what is it?"

"You don't know? It's been in circulation for a long time now; and I only got a copy of it after Miriallia-san gave me one."

The old man opened the flat object.

It was a book.

"Anthology," he read aloud, "Stories, poems and music collected from the lives of extraordinary people."

He paused and flipped a page. "Who's the author?" The woman shrugged. "I don't know, and neither does Miriallia-san. It's strange actually."

The old man nodded, and flipped another page. His eyes rested on it for a moment, before they filled with tears.

_Dedicated to Kira Yamato._

He turned his head up to meet Saki's eyes, which were shining brightly. As the old man spoke, he felt his voice crack.

"How—how did you—"

"Look! Granpa has the book!" The voice of the small boy drifted into the room, and the children's footsteps followed, along with the harassed Pingu-sama. Before their mother could tell them off, both had already bounded into their grandfather's lap.

"Read it to us, please, grandpa?" they begged. The old man nodded wordlessly. He turned a few more pages, to the start of the first chapter.

It started, like most books did, with words of introduction.

"Once upon a time…"

And then, he began.


	2. Birthing

**Anthology**

**Birthing : the first chapter**

The warm, yellow sunshine dappled the Tuesday morning, at the big white house at the end of the street. It was a good morning, as one would notice, and on this day, things were unusually happy. The air smelled of wet leaves and rain hanging low from the clouds, and everything looked like it was from a storybook.

Little bluebirds fluttered in the small Acacia tree that grew in the front garden; waiting for the worms to pop out of their underground refuge, while the lurking orange-striped tabby cat that belonged to the mistress of the house lingered beneath the branches expectantly.

The white French windows were open to let the cool summer breeze in, but from inside the house, things were not as peaceful as they seemed.

"Julienne! JULIENNE! Quick, get the towels! The Mistress is giving birth!"

A plump, pink-cheeked woman with light brown curls escaping her bandanna hurried through the big doors of the white house, hastily whisking up her skirts.

"Where is that wench when you need her?" she muttered.

Turning a corner, her harried, pecking steps were led to a halt by another young woman, decked in the same uniform. She carried a stack of white towels.

"I SAY Julienne, do hurry up! They're in the master's bedroom! Make haste!"

It seemed that the plump woman was going to overheat any time soon, judging from the increasing pinkness of her cheeks. Nodding feebly, the servant-girl, Julienne, picked up her pace, disappearing around the hallway with the stack of towels bending over precariously.

This little scene was quite a memorable one—later, Julienne tripped over a fold in the carpet, and was unable to deliver the towels—instead, the midwife had to make do with a couple of spare sheets from the bedroom, for the baby's delivery.

A sweating, blonde-haired young woman lay on the colossal four-poster bed with her husband, the midwife and several servants all standing beside her. They seemed to be suspended in a state between tension and worry—and her bystanding nephew's comments were not making the situation any better.

"Geez…this sure is taking long…I wonder if the baby's getting impatient." A bronze-skinned, thin youth looked up momentarily from the glass face of his watch with a smirk on his face.

"Kali…" the husband warned, "Silence is a virtue." The Lord Uzumi Atha was not a man to be taken lightly, even by the most carefree and careless of people. If he said shut up, there were no questions asked.

Kali Atha, however, had proved to be a truly foolish young man.

"Yeah, sure." He snorted, rolling his eyes. Uzumi narrowed his.

That was when the rest of the room heard a small whooshing sound, and found a small, sharp object embedded in the wall, just centimetres away from the youth's left shoulder.

Kali shut up. No questions asked.

The woman on the bed groaned; if it was because of her husband's impulsive actions, or because of the pain of childbirth, no one really knew.

"Breathe in, breathe out…breathe in breathe out…" The midwife's assistant coaxed the woman gently, brushing the sweaty locks of hair from her forehead. She had witnessed many childbirths in the past, but none of the mothers in their time of labour looked as this one did.

Liesl Atha looked like she was going to die.

"Easy now—here she comes…" the midwife, with a practiced air of dignity around her, slowly felt the newborn's fragile head, as it came into the big, outside world. Liesl jerked back suddenly onto the bed, her moist face a mask of pain.

"AAAHH!"

"Liesl—"

"Shh!"

Several of the servants looked at the midwife's assistant in disbelief, incredulous at the fact that she even dared to silence Lord Uzumi. The woman, however, knew that this was not the time for talking, but a time for action. As she lifted a small, wet towel to the mother's forehead, an ear-splitting scream suddenly sliced the thin air.

The elderly midwife looked up with pride at the servants, the mistress, and Lord Atha. In her hands was a bloody little bundle of joy, wrapped in a bedsheet, and crying

The baby was born.

**.0o0.**

Cagalli Yula Atha stared at her older cousin in disbelief.

"You mean that's HOW I was born?"

"Why?" asked Kali, looking at her strangely. "Too normal for you?"

Cagalli shook her head. "I dunno, it just sounds…weird."

"Hrmph," he snorted, folding his arms. "Then I suppose I'll have to tell you about the other time, won't I?"

The girl leaned forward curiously. "You mean there's another story?"

Kali shrugged. "Maybe."

"But how can that be?" Cagalli demanded. "I couldn't have been born TWICE!"

"Of course NOT," he snapped. "You could have been born in two ways."

**.0o0.**

The day was beginning to fade away, and with it the brightness of the mornings. As the happy people in the white house celebrated the birth of a child, outside, a starving woman clawed the rough asphalt of the road in desperation.

What had been a bright blue sky suddenly began to grey, and seeing that it was about to rain, the servant-girl Julienne closed the white windows. She looked back suddenly, as she thought that she had seen someone outside…

"Julienne!"

"Coming!"

The woman was not far from the white house, in fact, she was quite near. If it were not for the sudden jolts of pain stinging her from time to time, she would have gotten there faster. Clad in faded blue, grey and brown, and with her filthy long hair tumbling over the shoulders of a thin, bony back, the woman looked like one of the beggars.

"We're almost there, my dearest," she murmured, possibly to herself, or to someone else. She never took her clear, brown eyes off the horizon

From within the folds of her dirty, tattered clothing, a soft cry came, and the woman paused to unfold a grey bundle from herself. It could not move that much yet; but it was beginning to.

"Come now, my love, don't cry," the woman whispered, gazing tenderly into the face of a quietly sobbing infant child, perhaps only a few days old.

"I'll find you a home soon."

Her bare feet made almost no noise as she approached the white, tall doors. The woman's eyes dropped to the ground, as she cradled the baby in her arms. All was going to end soon. All was going to be fine.

As her mud-caked feet rubbed against the clean, brown wood of the front steps, the beggar-woman felt a slight sense of satisfaction, and a thin, starved smile graced her pale lips.

There was still hope for the child.

Carefully, shakily, she knelt down and laid the bundle of spattered grey down on the floorboards. The baby let out a cry of protest, and waved one arm out to her.

But the woman did not look back.

She walked down the road, now looking thinner and more helpless than before; she had given up her last, most precious possession, and now, she was ready to die. Turning a corner into a dark alley, the woman let out a last, shivering, hateful laugh, before disappearing forever.

About an hour later, when his uncle had banished him from the master's bedroom, Kali sauntered out of the wooden doors of the kitchen, looking somewhat drained and pale. Despite his Aunt Liesl's protests, Lord Uzumi simply couldn't help himself with those little dart things, and Kali himself was beginning to doubt the image of his uncle as a peaceful, non-sadistic person.

A chocolate pastry in one hand, and a Chris Prior book in the other, the lanky youth collapsed in one of Lord Atha's gigantic easy chairs, and began to read.

_Looking this way and that, Theodore realized that he had been cornered by the enemy on all sides. The collar of his tweed jacket began to curl up in an ungainly manner, as beads of sweat formed on his brow. There was only one option remaining, he realized._

_He had to save Arisa. With this in mind, Theodore readied himself for the crushing impact as he—_

"Waaaah! Waaaaaah!"

Kali tore his eyes from the page in irritation. Could that baby NOT make noise once in a while? Gosh, only a few hours on the outside, and already, his little cousin was annoying the whole household.

As the young man settled back into his reading, he wondered why the infant was EVEN complaining. Practically the entire house was in there tending to the kid…so what reason did it have to cry?

"Waaah…"

Kali flipped a page, trying to ignore the noise.

"Stupid baby," he muttered, skimming a few pages, to see if Theodore would indeed make it to Arisa in time.

"Waaaah!"

Kali suddenly realized that the noise hadn't been coming from the direction of the master's bedroom. Frowning, he looked up from the book with a jerk, and stood up, eyes narrowed, scanning the area of the house.

"What the hell? There's only one baby—"

He was cut off by another cry.

Following the sound of the infant's voice, Kali found himself staring at the front door of the house. He blinked—twice—and still doubted it. Another baby? At the front door of the Atha household? It couldn't possibly be true. People didn't leave infant children on people's doorsteps anymore; that stuff only happened in the movies.

Cautiously, he curled his fingers around the handle, and pulled.

Outside, the infant's crying suddenly ceased, and a pair of small, dark eyes met with wide, surprised ones.

Suddenly frozen, Kali could do nothing but stare. The baby stared back.

Silence.

"Crud." He choked, not knowing that else to say. For once, he was at a loss for words.

**.0o0.**

This time, she doubled over in laughter. Kali stared.

"What?" he asked, "Was it THAT funny? I didn't think it was funny."

Slowly, Cagalli began to recover from her fit of giggles. A smile still graced her face, as she turned to her cousin.

"Sorry," she said "But I just couldn't help myself. The last part was pretty hilarious."

Kali snorted. "Yeah, sure."

"So…which one was me, and which one was Kira?"

He shot her a sidelong glance. "I have absolutely no idea." Kali lied, "But I think you were the spoiled rich baby, and he was the poor kid at the doorstep."

At this, Cagalli let loose a sharp glare.

"Kidding." Said Kali, in an obviously half-hearted way. "Maybe you should ask Lord Uzumi."

The girl brightened up. "Maybe I should."

And with that, she left the room, leaving her cousin sitting there by himself. Kali smiled, and took out his Chris Prior book, left untouched for thirteen years.

"Now," he murmured, "Where was I?"

**.0o0.**


End file.
